The Politics of Social Welfare in America

"Glenn Mackin fixes a keen theoretician's eye on welfare discourse highlighting how progressive advocates, present company included, may at times put too much stock in making ethical claims of inclusion, only to risk depoliticizing issues of otherness, marginalization, and the denigration of the disadvantaged. This is a really smart book that not only sharpens theoretical insight but creates opportunities for more effective political action." - Sanford Schram, Bryn Mawr College "Mackin draws vital new lessons from familiar stories about the politics of welfare. His innovative approach to political theory is to observe and listen carefully to what is said and done in political life, rather than to lay down what is true or false. There is an understated empirical dimension to his undertaking that starts from aporia - from perplexity - which he stages in the telling of stories that do not add up or that elude ideological and narrative frames imposed on them by other observers and political combatants. In the end, he does not show us which interpretation is right, or leave his reader to decide, but draws his reader into perplexity. And rather than being baffled about what should be done or who is right, the reader comes away better able to respond to what is actually said and done in media res." - Barbara Cruikshank, University of Massachusetts, Amherst "Mackin's work makes an extraordinarily important contribution to work on both democracy and social welfare. In The Politics of Social Welfare in America, he addresses an enduring concern of critical theorizing: the political problem of recognizing existing and differential vulnerability while aspiring to deliberative equality. Mackin convincingly argues that most current accounts entail a politics of recognition that ultimately reifies and reinforces existing organizations of privilege. His work offers us an alternative and politically productive way to approach questions of inequality - questions that are at the center of contemporary political work in and beyond the academy." - Julie White, Ohio University